accuracy

With the booming popularity of sound bars, iPod docks, and tiny Bluetooth speakers, it's increasingly obvious that most people aren't interested in buying the best-sounding speakers. Other factors, such as the smallest possible size and maximum feature set are higher priorities than sound quality. I go the other way and put sound at the top of my list, but I'm far from convinced that the most accurate sound is the best sound. Accuracy isn't what it's cracked up to be.

Digital audio formats, for example, always have more accurate frequency response than any analog format, … Read more

If you're not familiar with SwiftKey, it's a Google Play Editors' Choice app, and it won the coveted Most Innovative App award at the 2011 Global Mobile Awards in Barcelona, Spain. What sets it apart from other keyboard replacement apps is its capability to understand not just patterns in your typing, but also how words work together. This makes it scary good at predicting not only the next letter you need to type, but also the next word, sometimes even before you begin typing it. What's more, Swiftkey can continue to learn from your e-mail, SMS, and … Read more

If you're not familiar with SwiftKey, it's a Google Play Editors' Choice app, and it won the coveted Most Innovative App award at the 2011 Global Mobile Awards in Barcelona, Spain. What sets it apart from other keyboard replacement apps is its capability to understand not just patterns in your typing, but also how words work together. This makes it scary good at predicting not only the next letter you need to type, but also the next word, sometimes even before you begin typing it. What's more, Swiftkey can continue to learn from your e-mail, SMS, and … Read more

If you're not familiar with SwiftKey, it's a Google Play Editors' Choice app, and it won the coveted Most Innovative App award at the 2011 Global Mobile Awards in Barcelona, Spain. What sets it apart from other keyboard replacement apps is its ability to understand not just patterns in your typing, but also how words work together. This makes it scary good at predicting the next word you want to type, sometimes even before you begin typing it. What's more, SwiftKey can continue to learn from your e-mail, SMS, and even social media accounts (if enabled), so … Read more

If you're not familiar with SwiftKey, it's a Google Play Editors' Choice app, and it won the coveted Most Innovative App award at the 2011 Global Mobile Awards in Barcelona, Spain. What sets it apart from other keyboard replacement apps is its capability to understand not just patterns in your typing, but also how words work together. This makes it scary good at predicting the next word you want to type, sometimes even before you begin typing it. What's more, SwiftKey can continue to learn from your e-mail, SMS, and even social media accounts (if enabled), so … Read more

Microsoft's Kinect motion-gaming peripheral is now more accurate than it was at launch, according to Xbox senior product manager David Dennis.

"I think like we showed at E3, like Kudo [Tsunoda, creative director for Kinect] showed with Kinect Fun Labs--a lot of that tech is the advancements we've made in the accuracy, the tracking...being able to show finger tracking in the Sparkles demo he did," Dennis told Eurogamer in an interview published yesterday. He went on to cite Ubisoft's upcoming shooter Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, which allows people to take shots using their hands … Read more

Quick All to PDF helps users convert files into PDF format. Sporting a very simple format and very impressive results, users will have no problem overlooking some of the quirks that come with this program.

Users will need to look at the Getting Started Web site, which automatically appears when this program is downloaded. Beginning the conversion process is unlike similar programs we have tested and anyone ignoring these quick instructions will be confused. Beyond this, though, the program interface was highly intuitive, guiding us every step of the way. Converting a Word doc, Excel file, or other item to … Read more

Virtual Stopwatch attempts to be the most diverse time-keeping device you computer has ever seen. With an amazing array of options, it certainly reaches for that goal, but most users will probably find it overly-complicated.

The program appears to users as a small rectangular box with red digital numbers representing hours, minutes, seconds, and hundredths of seconds on a black background. Below the stopwatch are buttons for starting and resetting, along with a lap counter. Each button should be intuitive for anyone who has used a stopwatch, virtual or physical. Virtual Stopwatch's simplistic design takes a nosedive once users … Read more

Converting Word documents to PDFs was once a daunting task that has recently become easy thanks to conversion software. However, Quick Word to PDF is not one of those programs, thanks to its defective operation.

The program's interface looks promising, with a simple screen, professional layout with well-drawn green command icons at the top, and a simple white action screen with large blue buttons to browse files for conversion. The program's trial is supposed to allow up to 15 conversions, but we were not able to select a single file to convert. We were given an error message … Read more

This morning Google Maps has a handy new feature for users who want to give the free mapping service a little more precision. Users who are signed into Google Maps with their Google account can now edit where a marker appears on any location, be it a business or residential listing. The feature stemmed from some of the options found in Google's My Maps, which lets users create their own maps using specialized markers and road directions.

To curb potential abuse, users aren't able to edit the location of a business that has already verified its location via Google's Local Business Center. There's also an official review system that has to double check your edit if it's more than 200 meters away from the original location. If you come across a marker that's been moved, you can view its original location and you think is inaccurate, you can click a link to send it back to its original spot.

While you have to be signed in to make changes, other users can only see the first two letters of your name. Likewise, if any changes have been made you can track them in a history, which shows the original marker location, along with its new one, on a mini map.

Eventually the company hopes that this will let users with potentially mismarked residential listings rectify any confusion that results as a part of difficult to find entries--typically the kind of thing you find in tightly packed urban areas, or buildings with multiple entrances. Google has also put together an explanatory video, which I've embedded after the break.… Read more